And Elias—Jesus fucking Christ. He’s vibrating, foaming at the edges. A rabid animal on blades. He skates as if he’s hunting something invisible, muttering Bastard jersey numbers through clenched teeth, swinging his stick with intent. That mouthguard dangles from his lips, forgotten.
I’ve seen him hungry. I’ve seen him furious. But this—this is personal.
Center ice. Faceoff. The crowd roars around us, thunder in our veins. Across the line, the Bastards are already glaring, already measuring the grave.
“Rip his throat out, Cap,” Cole growls behind me.
I nod once because that's all they need.
The puck drops and Elias wins it so clean the Bastards’ center stumbles, and he doesn’t even hesitate as he spins and cuts up the ice, dangling past one, then two defensemen with footwork so filthy it makes the crowd forget how to breathe, curling tight around the crease with blades slicing and eyes locked before herips it, wrister, top shelf, net, and the horn blares like an airstrike as glass rattles under pounding fists and the fans rise as one, throats already raw from screaming.
Elias turns hard on his heel, skates backward across the crease, and yells—actually yells, mouth wide open, curls flying like a halo of hell. “HEY, EIGHTY-FOUR! THAT ONE’S FOR YOUR MOM!”
Cole shrieks. Shane launches into the boards like he’s been possessed. Viktor slams his gloves together with thunderous force. Mats yells“¡Puta madre!”loud enough to make the Bastards bench flinch.
Next shift hits.
Me, Elias, Cole, Viktor and Mats, with Shane behind us tapping the post like a ritual, and the first twenty seconds are pure noise, skates and blades and contact and heat colliding as Elias darts through them at full tilt, speed and violence stitched together, while I trail wide left and wait, and Cole does what he does best, running his mouth and drawing blood with it, talking shit. “You skate like a dead grandma!”
“Your gloves smell like disappointment and regret!”
“You wish you were on my TikTok, you ugly fuck!” He’s glorious, loud and fast and cocky as hell, until the hit comes out of nowhere.
One of the Bastards—number 94, big fucker with no soul in his eyes—lines up Cole behind the play and destroys him. No puck. No warning. The sound of it echoes across the barn and Cole flies. Helmet off, skates in the air, he hits the ice like a ragdoll, and doesn’t get up. Elias screams his name, Mats lets out a fuck so loud the whole crowd hears it, Shane starts banging his stick on the post.
Viktor moves without hesitation, launching across the ice and crashing into the Bastard who dropped Cole—not with a punch, but with his whole body. He goes in hard, shoulders tucked,stick already discarded. They hit the ice together, Viktor landing on top, and then he starts swinging—gloves gone, elbows sharp, every hit cold and precise, rage honed to something surgical.
The refs flood the ice, screaming. Half the Bastards bench vaults the boards. The crowd is losing its mind. Elias grabs Cole and pulls him back like he’s lifting a corpse off the battlefield, muttering “you’re okay, you’re okay, you’re okay” like a chant.
I watch Viktor break that man. He doesn’t stop until blood hits the ice.
Cole gets up, thank fuck. He’s staggering, sure—lip split, helmet gone, nose probably broken again—but he’s laughing. Blood in his teeth and madness in his eyes, giggling as Elias hauls him back toward the bench.
“I’M FINE,” Cole howls, waving one arm like a flag. “I’M GORGEOUS.”
But I barely register it. Because Viktor is still swinging. He’s straddling the bastard who laid Cole out, one glove off, the other shoving down into his chest like he’s trying to punch the heartbeat out of the guy’s ribs. The crowd’s roaring. The refs are panicking. Elias is yelling something, but I don’t hear him.
I’m already moving. I launch off the bench and onto the ice, boots carving into blood-slicked surface, storming toward the dogpile. And I don’t hesitate. I reach down, grab Viktor by the collar, and yank. He resists for half a second, he fights me—body tight, knuckles still twitching, jaw clenched with silent rage—but then he hears me. “Petrov,” I snarl in his ear. “I need you not to get suspended.”
He stops. Still crouched over the wreckage of number 94, chest heaving, mouth bleeding. Then, slowly, he turns his head and nods once.
I shove him back. “Bench,” I bark. “Now.”
He skates off without a word. A bomb with the pin halfway pulled.
The Bastard under him? He’s not getting up for a while.
I turn back to our bench just as Cole flops down beside Elias, grinning. “That was HOT,” he wheezes. “Do it again.”
I’m surrounded by maniacs.
The refs skate over like a firing squad—chests puffed, hands waving, radios crackling. “Bench warning!” one of them barks, jabbing a finger toward me like I personally summoned Satan. “Petrov’s this close to ejection. You pull him or we will.”
I don’t blink. “He got jumped.”
The ref glares. “He broke the guy’s visor with his fist.”
“He’s still breathing, isn’t he?” I growl.
